This site uses cookies to improve your experience and deliver personalised advertising. You can opt out at any time or find out more by reading our cookie policy. For the best part of half a decade Conservative politicians, starting with David Cameron , have been on a crusade to clean up the web. They succeeded at the end of when parliament passed the Digital Economy Act, which laid out the plans for the new porn block. In simple terms, its plan is to require pornographic websites to verify users are over 18 before they view content, with several age verification providers vying for their custom using a variety of different methods.
But the policy has been beset by numerous delays. And now, it's been cancelled completely. Culture secretary Nicky Morgan, in a written statement, said the government wasn't going to pursue the implementation of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act aka the porn block. So, how did this mess happen at all?
Here we explain where the new regulations came from, what they mean for web users and the problems they could create in the future. Technically the porn block is a system of age checks. From the launch date in July, porn websites will have to show anyone visiting from a UK IP address a landing page that doesn't show any explicit content. This landing page won't go away until the visitor is able to show they're over 18 — old enough to view the adult material.
Formally, it's called age verification. These blocks will vary in appearance from one website to another but there's one thing that's certain: this approach is the first set of age checks being placed on porn anywhere in the world. The change that porn websites will have to make has been introduced by section 14 1 of the Digital Economy Act. The Act completed its maneuvers through parliament on April 27, , and also says the UK should have a universal broadband service, gives extra powers to communications regulator Ofcom, and encourages the government to introduce more digital services.
But its the pornography element of the Digital Economy Act that's been the most talked about. The law itself defines pornography videos that should have an R18 certificate, or material that's designed to sexually arouse and says how the web should be policed to stop children seeing adult content and introduces the powers to make sure age-checking landing pages are put in place.
